Russian authorities have started to ban government personnel from using Apple iPhones for official state purposes, according to the Financial Times.
The country’s trade ministry will start banning iPhone use on Monday for all “work purposes” but they’re permitted to continue using those devices for personal purposes as long as they don’t access official correspondence on them.
Other organisations, such as the Ministry of Communications and mass media in Russia, either already have comparable mandates in place or will shortly start implementing them. According to The Times, the prohibition applies to all Apple phones.
The restriction is in response to a claim made by Russia’s Federal Security Service at the beginning of June that it had discovered an Apple device-related “spying operation by US intelligence agencies.”
Thousands of iPhones, including those used by the nation’s diplomatic missions in NATO nations, were allegedly “infected” with spying software, according to the FSB.
The FSB continued by asserting that Apple had collaborated extensively with US signal intelligence to give operatives “a wide range of control tools.”
This was rejected by the tech giant, which added that it “never worked with any government to build a backdoor into any Apple product, and never will.”
